Epilogue
Tori
Something’s going on.
I can tell because Maisie keeps giggling every time she looks at me, and Zayden has checked his phone approximately forty-seven times in the last hour. They’re both terrible at keeping secrets—a trait I find endlessly endearing—and whatever they’re hiding, it must be big.
“You’re being weird,” I tell him as he sets the table for dinner. “Both of you.”
“We’re not being weird,” Maisie says, way too fast. “We’re being normal. This is normal.”
“Totally normal,” Zayden agrees, avoiding my gaze. “Just a regular Friday dinner.”
“Uh-huh.”
I let it go because the clinic’s grand opening is tomorrow, and I’m too tired to interrogate them properly.
The past month has been a blur of paperwork, equipment deliveries, and marketing meetings, and I still can’t quite believe it’s real or that it happened so quickly.
But a lease on a perfect building was available, and I jumped at the chance. My name on the door. My business. Mine.
Dinner is spaghetti—Maisie’s favorite—and we eat at the table like we always do now. The three of us. This little family we’ve somehow become.
“Tori,” Maisie says, pushing a meatball around her plate. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Maze.”
She glances at Zayden, who gives her a tiny nod. My stomach flutters. Whatever this is, they’ve rehearsed it.
“Remember when we built the blanket fort?” she asks. “And I told you my secret?”
My throat tightens. “I remember.”
“About how I used to wish for someone to do mom stuff with me?”
“Yeah, honey. I remember.”
She sets down her fork and looks at me with those big brown eyes—so serious and earnest it makes my chest ache.
“I was thinking,” she says carefully, like she’s reciting lines she’s practiced. “That maybe... you could be that person. For real. Forever.”
I can’t breathe.
“Maisie—”
“Not like a pretend mom or a sometimes mom.” She slides off her chair and comes around the table to stand next to me, and that’s when I notice movement out of the corner of my eye.
Zayden. Pushing back from the table. Lowering himself to one knee.
My heart stops.
“A real one,” Maisie continues, reaching for my hand. “The kind that stays.”
Zayden pulls a small velvet box from his pocket, and Maisie steps aside, her job done, grinning like she just pulled off the world’s greatest heist.
“She’s been practicing that for three days,” Zayden says, his voice rough. “Wouldn’t let me help. Said she had it handled.”
I laugh, but it comes out watery. “She did.”
“My turn now.” He opens the box. The ring catches the light—a stunning oval diamond on a gold band.
It’s bigger and more beautiful than anything I would have picked for myself.
“Tori, I had this whole speech prepared. About how you walked into my life and everything started to make sense. How you made me want to be better—for you, for Maisie, for myself.”
“Zayden—”
“But she’s right. You’re already our family.
And I know this is fast, but I’m not confused about where this is going.
Not even a little.” He reaches for my hand, his thumb brushing over my knuckles.
“I want to watch you build your clinic into something incredible. I want to be the one by your side through all of it.”
His eyes are bright, and I realize with a start that he’s close to tears too. This man who guards everything, who holds the world at arm’s length—he’s kneeling in front of me with his whole heart on display.
“I’m all in, Tori. I have been since the beginning.” His voice cracks slightly. “So will you be my wife. Be ours—forever?”
“Say yes!” Maisie whisper-shouts from somewhere behind him. “You have to say yes!”
I’m crying. Full-on ugly crying, tears streaming down my face, and I don’t even care. I look at this man—this stubborn, guarded, impossibly tender man who fought for me when I was too scared to fight for myself—and I wonder how I ever thought I could walk away from this.
“Yes.” The word comes out thick and watery. “Yes, of course yes.”
His whole face transforms. That rare, real smile breaks through as he slides the ring onto my finger—and it fits perfectly, because of course it does; he pays attention to everything.
Then he’s on his feet, pulling me up with him, and his mouth finds mine in a kiss that tastes like tears, promise, and finally.
“Group hug!” Maisie barrels into us, wedging herself between our legs until we break apart laughing. “I did good, right? I didn’t mess up my lines?”
“You did perfectly, little shadow.” Zayden scoops her up with one arm, keeping the other around me.
Later—after dinner and ice cream and cleanup, after Maisie finally falls asleep; and after we’ve migrated to the couch with the lights low and my head on his shoulder—I look at the ring on my finger and try to remember the last time I felt this happy.
I can’t. Because I’ve never felt this happy.
“Do you like it?”
I glance up. “What?”
“The ring.” He’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite read—nervous, almost. “It’s an oval cut, just over two carats. The band is platinum with pavé diamonds—that means the little ones on the side. The jeweler said the clarity is—”
“Zayden.”
“—VS1, which is apparently very good, and the color is—”
“Zayden.”
“—but if you don’t like it, we can exchange it. We can get something different—whatever you want. A different shape, a different setting, bigger, smaller—”
I silence him the most effective way I know how—by kissing him.
When I pull back, he blinks at me, slightly dazed. “So... that’s a yes on the ring?”
“I love the ring.” I hold up my hand, watching the diamond catch the light. “I love that you know what pavé means. I love that you picked it. I love everything about it.”
The tension drains from his shoulders. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He pulls me closer, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. We sit there for a while, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my arm, the city humming outside the window.
“Hey,” Zayden murmurs.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
I twist to look at him. “I’m perfect. Why?”
“You’re quiet. You’re never quiet.”
“I’m just... thinking.” I settle back against him. “About how different everything is. A few months ago, I had my rule, my five-year plan, and this whole life mapped out. And now...”
“Now?”
“Now I have you. And Maisie. And a clinic with my name on the door.” I laugh softly. “None of this was in the plan.”
“Is that bad?”
“No.” I find his hand and thread my fingers through his. “It’s just funny. I spent so long trying to control everything. And then you came along and blew it all up.”
“In my defense, you blew up my life too. In the best way.” His hand intertwines with mine.
“Fair.”
We sit there for a while, not talking, just breathing. His thumb traces circles on my palm. The city hums outside the window. Everything feels exactly right.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“For what?”
“For not giving up on me. Even when I was trying really hard to push you away.”
He shifts, tilting my chin up so I’m looking at him. “I told you, Tori. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.” I smile. “But thank you anyway.”
He kisses me—slow, sweet, full of promise—and I sink into it. Into him. Into this life I never planned but somehow ended up exactly where I’m supposed to be.
The woman with the ironclad rule and the five-year plan, engaged to a hockey player.
My mother is going to lose her mind. But that’s a problem for tomorrow.
Tonight, I’m just going to be here. In this moment. With my family.
The one I never knew I was wishing for.
· · ·
You’re not going to want to miss what’s coming next! Banks & Winnie’s story continues in book two—where the team’s broodiest defenseman meets his match in a sunshine yoga instructor who doesn’t take no for an answer.
Banks doesn’t do relationships. Doesn’t do feelings. Doesn’t do yoga.
Winnie’s about to change all that.
Ice Cold Chemistry is a grumpy-sunshine hockey romance, and oh... it’s going to get spicy.